Juta Booksellers sign up

In May 2013 we published everything that we had learned about outlets which included the results of the survey taken at the start of the year on our blog. I also met with several schools in the southern suburbs of Cape Town to introduce Paperight to them and discuss the possibility of Paperight-edition publications being made available at the schools. I attended the Africa Print Expo at the CTICC to gain a better understanding of the equipment that outlets use.

Juta, a very popular publisher and bookseller, was based just two floors below our office. I had a meeting with Charmaine at Juta to discuss the possibility of Juta’s bookstores becoming Paperight outlets. They were specifically interested in selling our past exam papers via their bookstores. The following month they registered several of their stores nationwide.

The anthology done, promising bulk sales, and a raft of coverage

We’ve been busy! On 31 May 2013 we finally completed the Paperight Young Writers Anthology, a collection of poetry, short stories, essays and illustrations from SA high school students in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa and Sesotho. (Blog post from early June here. Strategically, this is a marketing effort and a door-opener for selling books to schools.

We’ve also been churning out a range of marketing materials for copy shops, a new help/how-to video, and improved software features on paperight.com (e.g. A5 books).

We also made our first completed bulk-sale to a school, the first of an important revenue generating approach.

Travelling

In mid April, Tarryn and Oscar attended the London Book Fair and pitched to win the Fair’s Digital Minds Innovation Award, which boosted our credibility at the fair and resulted in lots of great local PR. The attention from this win also helped conclude our deal with O’Reilly.

In late April I headed to Joburg for meetings with potential partner organisations, and in late May I was off to Boston to gather with the rest of the Shuttleworth Foundation crew.

Spreading the word

Spreading with word about Paperight and the things that are important to us is a key part of my work.

On 30 May 2013 I wrote a post on open business, arguing that openness starts in a company’s DNA, and focusing on transparency, which allows and encourages sharing and shared learning, and leads to greater effectiveness.

On 21 May 2013 I was interviewed on Publishing Perspectives, and explained why a paper-based solution is still critical for access to books and sales for publishers in developing markets.

On 17 April 2013 I did an interview on innovation and the future and Paperight, and on 7 March 2013 I did an interview with CNBC Africa about Paperight.

On 18 March 2013 I wrote a post on ‘Good writing is a pinnacle skill’, arguing that the many skills that go into good writing are an excellent indicator that a person will be a great hire. This has been a key part of my recruitment strategy at Paperight, and has helped us build a great team.

On 8 March 2013 I wrote about Pratham Books data on open licensing and book sales.

Others on board

All this talk is helping get people behind our cause. Here are three particularly nice pieces:

We’ve seen loads of great PR about our winning at O’Reilly Tools of Change in New York in Feb and London Book Fair Innovation Award in April, our Young Writers Anthology, and general Paperight coverage:

  • 1 March 2013: Daily News, “Vision to spread books around SA”.
  • 2 March 2013, CNBC Africa, Eye on Western Cape, “Paperight wins publishing innovation competition“
  • 2 March 2013, Burger (Kaap Platterland) Saturday, “Kaapse drukdiens oorsee bekroon”.
  • 6 to 7 March 2013, coverage of our Anthology in community newspapers: Athlone News, Plainsman, Southern Mail, Table Talk, “High school writers’ competition”, Tygertalk (Goodwood & Parow), Tygertalk (Bellville & Durbanville), Vukani, Southern Suburbs Tatler, Atlantic Sun, The Capetowner, Constantiaberg Bulletin, False Bay Echo, Sentinel News. A follow up the next week, 14 March 2013 in Vukani, “Shuttleworth to launch Young Writers Anthology”.
  • 19 March 2013, bizcommunity, “Free guide to studying at Unisa“ and Helderberg Gazette (“Free book helps students to pass”) cover our UNISA students’ guide ‘Now What’.
  • 22 March 2013, more community papers cover the forthcoming anthology: Coastal Weekly, De Aar Echo, Northcliff & Melville Times, Stanger Weekly.
  • 27 March 2013, Bandwidth Blog, “Local startup wins innovation award in NYC“.

In terms of key publishers joining our thinking by working with us:

Our roadmap for the next 3 months

We’re going to:

  • Continue our direct sales approach (bulk sales and CSR sponsorships) to stay on track with revenue targets.
  • Release and promote (mainly through PR) the Paperight Young Writers Anthology, building on the relationships this is creating with schools to grow sales of study guides and past exam-paper packs.
  • Complete a comprehensive marketing plan with the pro-bono help of Zoom Advertising and a group of MBA students working on Paperight’s marketing plan as a course project.
  • Implement concerted promotional campaign for our past matric exam packs.
  • Finalise and promote pending partnerships with chains Minuteman Press and PostNet.

We get the fright of “A Life”

a-life_ramphele_cover_20130311_72dpiIn May we were named as the Second Respondent in a law suit initiated by Mamphela Ramphele. She claimed she had not given permission for the re-release of her autobiography, a project being lead by New Africa Books, the First Respondent. We had been working with NAB to get the autobiography, A Life, onto Paperight, and Nick Mulgrew (Paperight’s in-house designer), had designed a spiffing new cover to replace the old one. Originally, A Life had been published by David Phillip publishers in 1995, and DP was later acquired by New Africa Books.

Ramphele claimed that NAB did not have the right to re-release her autobiography, and thus that Paperight had no right to distribute it. When NAB signed up with Paperight they signed our publishers agreement which includes a clause in which the publisher warrants that they are the owner of, or are authorised to license, all of the content they give to Paperight, and indemnifying Paperight from any third party claims arising from a breach of this warranty. So we were covered, but it was certainly disturbing to get served. I was able to digest the legal documents we received and liaise with our lawyer to assist with the drawing up of an affidavit. Thankfully, NAB and Ramphele settled the matter out of court fairly quickly and amicably, and we agreed to remove the book from the site. It was a big wake up call to us all.

Cambridge University Press signs up

I was away for much of May (on leave) and back in the office on the 20th. Nevertheless, it was an important month. When I returned, I countersigned the CUP agreement and the Carroll & Brown agreement. We fixed some bugs on the site, completed the Mindset Learn upload, and facilitated the transfer of some Pan Macmillan titles (The Youngsters series to start with).

I also continued with LBF follow up, and general publisher followups on loose administrative ends, trying to nudge towards registrations that had been promised, fielding questions from wary publishers (usually regarding piracy and DRM). In the LBF wrap up, we also completed a reconciliation of expenses for the trip, and I sent content proposals out to publishers I’d met at the fair, and who were interested in registering.

This month was also the end of Philippa’s time with us. She left her internship at Paperight to take two successive ones at the US Trademark Offices and the Copyright Clearance Center in Washington DC

UPDATE: Don’t worry, this is not the last you’ll hear of her! She came back!

Publisher Registrations

  • SelfMadeHero (7/5/2013)
  • Pressque Publishing (8/5/2013)
  • Masimba Musodza (9/5/2013)
  • Oxford University Press (13/5/2013)
  • Ilex Omni Publishing (15/5/2013)
  • Pillar International Publishing (21/5/2013)
  • Author jonah Becker (21/5/2013)
  • Geko Publishing (21/5/2013)
  • Graceworks (22/5/2013)
  • Gail Iris Rosslee (27/5/2013)
  • Panmacmillan SA (29/5/2013)
  • theInkSword (30/5/2013)
  • Botshelo Publishing (31/5/2013)

Matric exams update 2013

In May I facilitated the update to the matric past exam papers. These were the best selling items on the site. One of the best ways to prepare for the matric exams is by going through past papers to get an idea of how the questions were asked. Sometimes entire questions are simply transplanted from an old exam into the current one, so it is a fantastic tool for students. On the site we had single year packs and multi-year packs available for each subject. These would need to be updated each year as the papers became available on the Department of Basic Education’s website. I downloaded all of the 2012 papers and began working on creating the single year packs, while the freelancers worked on adding the 2012 papers to the multi-year packs. Tarryn trained me on how to use Acrobat and InDesign and before long I was churning out matric exam packs and other books. The metadata for the updated exams also had to be updated to reflect the fact that they now included papers from 2012. This had to be done on the site as well as on the master metadata sheet.

At the end of May I left Paperight to take up an internship at the US Copyright Office in Washington, DC for eight weeks, and to visit the Copyright Clearance Center in Boston. I had an absolutely amazing time researching foreign copyright law for the Register’s Office, and exploring DC. After what felt like ages I was excited to come back to Paperight in mid September.

The Paperight Help Video

Another part of my induction to Paperight was to produce a Paperight help video to be uploaded to the help site. The help video was designed as a nifty tool for new and registered outlets to refer to about how the site works.

The decision to make this video came from increasing evidence that a large number of registered copy shop managers seemed to find the Paperight.com website difficult to navigate when encountering it remotely, i.e. without a Paperight team member to assist them in person. With copy shops signing up all over South Africa, the help video became the most obvious solution.

The completed video covered the entire Paperight registration process, then how to top up an account with credits (including the two different payment options), the process of finding a document, buying the license and how to download. The option to change general account settings was also detailed, including how to add another user or multiple users to the account.

The video was created using screen casts of specific cursor actions (recorded through CamStudio) and voice recorded prompts that I edited together through iMovie. The finished product was far from professional, but it did the trick. For all outlet queries about the website, Yazeed and I would direct them to the help video to cut down on possible confusion.

The video was launched in the weekly newsletter, and uploaded to the Paperight blog and the help site.

Project 11: London Book Fair 2013: closing report

Aim: Develop contacts and build team expertise by sending content manager to one of the worlds’ main publishing trade fairs.

General report-back

Tarryn-Anne Anderson and Oscar Masinyana attended the 2013 London Book Fair with the mandate of developing publisher relationships and approaching publishers about obtaining their content for sale via Paperight. Additionally, they were to pitch Paperight as part of the Digital Minds Innovation Showcase at the Digital Minds Conference on the day before the fair.

Oscar’s trip was funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, as organised by the Publisher’s Association of South Africa. As part of the sponsorship, Paperight was given a table on the South African National Pavilion at the fair. This allowed us a place to meet with publishers, and a space within which to display Paperight-branded materials (our roller-banner for example).

On Sunday the 14th of April, Tarryn gave a presentation on Paperight, developed by her and Oscar, at the Digital Minds Innovation Showcase. The showcase formed part of the Digital Minds Conference, annually held before the London Book Fair, and attended by industry leaders in digital publishing. Paperight was expected to offer a 4-minute pitch, against seven other innovative start-ups in digital publishing. We were selected as the winner of the showcase by popular vote.

At the fair (15th-17th April), we focused on meeting with publishers and building relationships. The overall response to Paperight was very positive. The publishers with whom we met broadly fell into three categories:

  • Those who are already making their material available on Paperight (in order to build upon an existing working relationship).
  • Those who we have already contacted about Paperight, and who are keen, but who have not officially provided us with material or signed contracts (in order to ‘close the deal’, and foster trust).
  • Those who are hearing about Paperight for the first time (in order to build contacts and establish relationships with potential rightsholders).

Objectives achieved

We sent our content manager Tarryn to the London Book Fair to represent Paperight, develop contacts, and learn from being at one of the primary publishing trade fairs in the world.

Tarryn represented Paperight in the Digital Minds Innovation Competition and we were awarded first place . As a result of achieving this award, Paperight has achieved great press.

National Parliament heard about us achieving the award and acknowledged Paperight, officially stating: ‘[An] ingenious solution to widespread book shortages in the developing world [.. The House] congratulates Paperight and encourages publishers to register with Paperight in making their works accessible to all.”

Relationships were started and built with publishers, media and related business.

Meetings and discussions were achieved with the following companies: Valobox, Aleph Trade and Investment, Midas PR, IDEA, The American Book Centre, Mobcast, Elsevier, Profile Books, Harvard University Press, Metro/SelfmadeHero, Higher Education, NECE & SAF Schools Manager, MM Publiscations, Carroll and Brown Publishers, Polity Press, Pluto Press, Bloomsbury, Pearson, Harlequin, Do Sustainability, O’Reilly Media, Benetech, Accent Press, Excite Books, Sweet Cherry Publishing, MEA, PUO Educational Products, My Little Big Town and Ingram Content Group.

Objectives not achieved

Tarryn not only achieved her objectives, she won Paperight a prestigious Innovation award.

Measures of success

Before: “We expect: Tarryn’s confidence and ability to correspond with international publishers is greater, and this rubs off on the team. We’ll continue to learn as an organisation whether the investment in these kinds of trips is worth it, and what we need to do differently in future to increase that value. We further expect that one or more of the publishers Tarryn met with in Frankfurt commits to listing titles with us in the follow-up month to the London fair.”

After: Tarryn engaged with more publishers than she had done at the previous book fair, with many of the publishers instantly expressing and interest to come on board with Paperight. Tarryn also showed a tremendous amount of strength in presenting on behalf of Paperight at the Digital Minds Innovation competition. Twitter feeds were streaming in with people who were impressed with her pitch, and after the event she was met by a number of people who were interested in finding out more. We have no doubt that sending Tarryn to the book fair was great value for money and would definately do the same in the future.

Before: “We would like: To see half a dozen international publishers adding content to Paperight within weeks of meeting Tarryn at the fair. To see lessons learned from the trip continuing to directly affect (or affirm) the way we approach publishers from day to day, from social messaging to direct pitches.”

After: Within the first four weeks after the London Book Fair 30 publishers have signed up with Paperight.

Before: “We would love to see: A dozen international publishers registering and listing titles on Paperight in the weeks following the fair.”

After: We have had one or two international publishers registering with Paperight.

Budget

Original budget: R22200

Actual spend: 18660.97

Returned to pool: 3539.03

 

Item Budget Spent Return to pool Notes
Flight 11500 8168 3332
Hotel 6200 6155.6 44.40
Trains and taxis 1000 688.30 311.70
Food 2250 1497.95 752.05
Fair registration 450 437.31 12.69
Visa 800 1320 -520
Unbudgeted 0 393.81 -393.81 We needed to send couriered documents to PASA and we also celebrated winning  the Digital Minds Innovations Showcase Award
Total 22200 18660.97 3539.03

 

Outputs and deliverables

[Notes on meetings with publishers redacted because they contain others’ confidential business information.]

Learnings

Arranging the accommodation as close to the trade fair as possible frees up more time for valuable meetings.

There are still misconceptions in the industry as to what Paperight is all about. Having the opportunity to discuss Paperight and answer concerns in person assisted in reassuring publishers and creating more engaging partnerships.

Exit/Sustainability/Viability

We have no doubt after the success we have achieved from these trips that It has been very worthwhile to send Tarryn to attend these Book Fairs. Contacts were made which enabled us to sign up publishers that we were not able to sign up before, and at a quicker rate than we did without the meetings. We created a greater awareness in the publishing industry both in South Africa and overseas. The meetings at the book fairs have assisted in creating a valuable trust relationship in the industry while maximising visibility in a short time frame.

Conclusion

We would not hesitate to send Tarryn to more trade fairs.

Next steps

We are approaching the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa to see if we can obtain a grant to send either Tarryn or Oscar to the Frankfurt Book Fair.

A life sued

(Also see Philippa’s post on this startling turn of events.)

An unexpected visitor

On the 7th May 2013 16h22 an attorney arrived at our office with a stack of papers giving us notice that Mamphela Ramphele intended to take a case up against New Africa Books (PTY) Ltd (First Respondent) and Paperight (PTY) Ltd (Second Respondent).

The notice prevented us from doing any act that related to the book authored by Mamphela Ramphele and entitled Mamphela Ramphele: A Life, including producing, publishing and distributing the book. We were ordered as the second respondent to remove all copies and references to this book from our website and our outlets within 10 days of receiving this order.

We were also notified that we would be liable as respondents to pay the costs of the application and possible further or alternative relief. This came as quite a shock to us as we were given permission to add this book to our website as New Africa Books was the title owner.

We got in touch with New Africa Books to find out what had taken place. There was quite a complex story involved where there was some confusion about who was the current title owner, New Africa Books or Mamphela Ramphele.

We took the book off of our website and drafted an affidavit which was sent through to our lawyer to explain what took place. The case against us was dropped as we had not infringed any copyright agreement.

Our drafted affidavit

Paperight acts as a distribution service for Rightsholders by allowing printing businesses to licence and legally print out books and other paper documents from its website.

Rightsholders register on the Paperight website and provide Paperight with content that they would like distributed through the Paperight network.

Rightsholders charge a licence fee through the Paperight website to printing businesses to allow them to legally print out copies of documents.

Paperight ordinarily takes 20% of each licence fee earned by a rightsholder through the Paperight website.

Rightsholders are required to agree to Paperight’s Rightsholder Agreement – or negotiate and sign a separate legal contract if the Rightsholder objects to any of the terms of the regular Agreement – when they sign up with the Paperight service.

New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd signed up with Paperight on 25 February 2013, and agreed to the standard Paperight Rightsholder Agreement in doing so.

Paperight was supplied with an original print copy of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life by New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd thereafter, as the latter was seeking to republish the book under its David Philip Publishers imprint.

The copy of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life supplied to Paperight from New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd was published by David Philip Publishers in 1995. Paperight digitised and uploaded Mamphela Ramphele – A Life onto the Paperight system on 17 April 2013.

Paperight released a press release, jointly with New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd, promoting the latter’s re-printing and “re-release” of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life and its distribution through bookstores and the Paperight network.

On 7 May 2013, Paperight was notified of a motion relating to copyright infringement of Mamphela Ramphele on behalf of New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd and Paperight, relating to the reprinting of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life.

As per Paperight’s Rightsholder Agreement, which New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd agreed to when they signed up to the Paperight service, “the Rightsholder warrants that it is the owner of, or is authorized to licence, the rights to all content provided to Paperight”.

The agreement further states that content provided by a Rightsholder “does not infringe on anyone else’s intellectual property or other rights”.

The Rightsholder Agreement states that “The Rightsholder will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Paperight […] against any third-party claims arising from a breach of this warranty”.

The onus of the legality of the content provided to and distributed by Paperight is therefore on the Rightsholder, in this case, New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd.

Paperight, therefore, cannot be held responsible for any infringement on Mamphela Ramphele’s copyright by New Africa Books. After being served with the notice, Mamphela Ramphele – A Life was taken off of the Paperight system at the discretion of Paperight’s employees.

From 17 April 2013 to 7 May 2013, New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd did not sell any copies of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life through the Paperight network.

As such, Paperight has earned no money or royalties from New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd’s distribution of Mamphela Ramphele – A Life.